Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert debuted in September 1973, and remained on, WNEW Channel 5, until it went off the air. I have yet to see a TV Guide page fascimile posted on this thread to prove it was on Channel 7 WABC.
East Coast Rocker, I remember “Saturday Night Fever” playing seemingly all of January 1978 at the Ridgewood Theatre, although I did not see it there. I remember being relieved at the absence of garbage piled up on Myrtle Avenue on one day only when I looked at the marquee then.
Which version of SNF did you see at the Ridgewood ? Did Tony (John Travolta) call Annette (Donna Pescow) a “pig” or something worse, which I can’t type here, rather than a “nice girl” ?
To see “an old-fashioned banking hall” still in action, while in Ridgewood, visit the home office of Ridgewood Savings Bank, 71-02 Forest Avenue, corner of Forest Avenue and George Street, at the intersection of Forest and Myrtle Avenue. There have been changes since I was first inside as a small boy in 1959 or so, but the mural painting, “Savings : The Secret Of Wealth” is still on the three-story high southwest wall of the main lobby.
With more than thirty branches in Queens, Brooklyn, Nassau, Suffolk, Manhattan, Bronx, and Westchester, it may be the best place for one’s money in these uncertain economic times.
Ridgewood Savings Bank opened in 1921, the main office at 71-02 Forest Avenue opened in 1929, the year of the stock market crash and beginning of the Great Depression, and was expanded in 1931. It never failed the way many other banks did. The “hungeleiters” (Ridgewood slang for German-Americans who were frugal to extremely stingy) who founded RSB knew what they were doing, apparently.
The nearby bank on the east side of Forest Avenue, between Myrtle and 70th Avenues, which was once a Home Federal Bank, has become several banks in the last twenty or so years, yet Ridgewood Savings Bank is still there, and still going strong.
Well, Warren it’s either queens crap or queen scrap. I don’t miss the “s” word either.
Bway, good observation about where that photo must have been taken from. Makes me wish I could still get up onto that platform. I was last there January 1997, just about 12 years ago.
Thanks for your input, Mpol. Good seeing you on this page. I’m glad you can see how passionate some of us ex-Ridgewoodites are about the Ridgewood Theatre, and how this theater will always live in our hearts.
Thanks as always Bway for all your fine input. Keep it up.
Good warning, East Coast Rocker, about landmarking status not meaning squat in NYC.
I walked by the Ridgewood Theatre this morning on the way to work. The marquee was still on the building, but no signs on the marquee or the rest of the facade whatsoeever giving a phone number to call about the building being for sale or rent. I wonder what’s up, what has changed.
While it still showed movies,the Ridgewood may well have been the longest continuously operated movie theatre in the Greater New York area, if not the entire USA. That’s exceptional.
What matters is what’s in the minds and hearts of all Ridgewood Theatre patrons, past and present, not what’s in books and other writings about theatres and purpose-built cinemas.
My point, Luis, was that if the Ridgewood were reopened this minute, it would take very little to get it functioning as a cinema again. The seats and screens are all there. whereas they are missing from the Keith’s Richmond Hill.
Also, Luis V, so far as I know, all five cinemas of the Ridgewood Theatre are still intact within, seats and screens and all, whereas the Keith’s Richmond Hill is still all one theater, with NO screen and NO seats.
Funny how the Ridgewood Theatre, “just your standard vaudeville house”, has one of the longest pages on Cinema Treasures.
The rectangle bounded by the abandoned Rockaway Line of the LIRR on the west, Atlantic Avenue on the north, 109th Avenue on the south, and the median strip of the Van Wyck Expressway on the east, is zip code 11419, South Richmond Hill, not Ozone Park. Ozone Park (zip code 11417) lies to the southwest of South Richmond Hill, and South Ozone Park (zip code 11420) to the south.
Good one, BklynJim ! Thanks !
Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert debuted in September 1973, and remained on, WNEW Channel 5, until it went off the air. I have yet to see a TV Guide page fascimile posted on this thread to prove it was on Channel 7 WABC.
East Coast Rocker, I remember “Saturday Night Fever” playing seemingly all of January 1978 at the Ridgewood Theatre, although I did not see it there. I remember being relieved at the absence of garbage piled up on Myrtle Avenue on one day only when I looked at the marquee then.
Which version of SNF did you see at the Ridgewood ? Did Tony (John Travolta) call Annette (Donna Pescow) a “pig” or something worse, which I can’t type here, rather than a “nice girl” ?
To see “an old-fashioned banking hall” still in action, while in Ridgewood, visit the home office of Ridgewood Savings Bank, 71-02 Forest Avenue, corner of Forest Avenue and George Street, at the intersection of Forest and Myrtle Avenue. There have been changes since I was first inside as a small boy in 1959 or so, but the mural painting, “Savings : The Secret Of Wealth” is still on the three-story high southwest wall of the main lobby.
With more than thirty branches in Queens, Brooklyn, Nassau, Suffolk, Manhattan, Bronx, and Westchester, it may be the best place for one’s money in these uncertain economic times.
Ridgewood Savings Bank opened in 1921, the main office at 71-02 Forest Avenue opened in 1929, the year of the stock market crash and beginning of the Great Depression, and was expanded in 1931. It never failed the way many other banks did. The “hungeleiters” (Ridgewood slang for German-Americans who were frugal to extremely stingy) who founded RSB knew what they were doing, apparently.
The nearby bank on the east side of Forest Avenue, between Myrtle and 70th Avenues, which was once a Home Federal Bank, has become several banks in the last twenty or so years, yet Ridgewood Savings Bank is still there, and still going strong.
Yes, Warren, and its Italian diminutive, “crapola”.
Well, Warren it’s either queens crap or queen scrap. I don’t miss the “s” word either.
Bway, good observation about where that photo must have been taken from. Makes me wish I could still get up onto that platform. I was last there January 1997, just about 12 years ago.
Thanks for your input, Mpol. Good seeing you on this page. I’m glad you can see how passionate some of us ex-Ridgewoodites are about the Ridgewood Theatre, and how this theater will always live in our hearts.
Thanks as always Bway for all your fine input. Keep it up.
Good warning, East Coast Rocker, about landmarking status not meaning squat in NYC.
I walked by the Ridgewood Theatre this morning on the way to work. The marquee was still on the building, but no signs on the marquee or the rest of the facade whatsoeever giving a phone number to call about the building being for sale or rent. I wonder what’s up, what has changed.
While it still showed movies,the Ridgewood may well have been the longest continuously operated movie theatre in the Greater New York area, if not the entire USA. That’s exceptional.
What matters is what’s in the minds and hearts of all Ridgewood Theatre patrons, past and present, not what’s in books and other writings about theatres and purpose-built cinemas.
My point, Luis, was that if the Ridgewood were reopened this minute, it would take very little to get it functioning as a cinema again. The seats and screens are all there. whereas they are missing from the Keith’s Richmond Hill.
Also, Luis V, so far as I know, all five cinemas of the Ridgewood Theatre are still intact within, seats and screens and all, whereas the Keith’s Richmond Hill is still all one theater, with NO screen and NO seats.
Funny how the Ridgewood Theatre, “just your standard vaudeville house”, has one of the longest pages on Cinema Treasures.
Thanks, Bway. Good thoughts.
Its consideration for landmark status is a good sign that it can, IMHO.
Thanks for the heads up, Bway. That’s great news. I’ll go check it out myself.
Thanks also for reminding me to check out the Times Newsweekly on this Thursday (the day of the week it comes out) the 15th.
The Crossbay (both old and new) Theatres do, however, lie within Ozone Park (zip code 11417).
Thanks, Warren.
The rectangle bounded by the abandoned Rockaway Line of the LIRR on the west, Atlantic Avenue on the north, 109th Avenue on the south, and the median strip of the Van Wyck Expressway on the east, is zip code 11419, South Richmond Hill, not Ozone Park. Ozone Park (zip code 11417) lies to the southwest of South Richmond Hill, and South Ozone Park (zip code 11420) to the south.
Thanks, Warren. It’s good to see the el in the picture, too.
You and me both, John D.
Thanks, Warren. It’s always great to see a view of the RKO Keith Richmond Hill Theatre up and running as a cinema again.
Good points, movie534 and Panzer65. But what can we do right now about the Ridgewood Theatre ?
Good ideas, Chicago229. Thanks for posting them.
Good idea, East Coast Rocker.
Tomorrow, Tuesday December 23 2008, it will have been ninety-two years since the Ridgewood Theatre opened on Saturday, December 23, 1916.
Probably and sadly true, Warren. Thanks.
Can you give us some percentages, Warren ?
I can well relate, JRS40, having enjoyed the films I have at the State Lake, and theaters like it.
I haven’t.
Thanks, MPol, I had no idea. I get the impression that women are in the minority among posters on this site. Am I correct ?